The main purpose of the present paper is to throw light on the Sufis’ role not only as religious ‘preachers’, but also as ‘healers’. As healers, Sufis had been able to mobilize the peasantry and rural men under their fold. The present paper aims at discussing how the Mughal tradition of unani medicine was followed by the Sufis, leading to great material value in social life.

The social history of medicine, which has made its presence in India over the last few years, is one of the most fascinating areas of research that integrates scholarship cutting across the boundaries of defined disciplines. The proposed topic, “Sufis and Healing”, struck my mind while I came across a large number of books on Sufism, particularly, Seema Alavi,1 Amit Dey2, Troll3, Currie4, Deepak Kumar5 and others6. The Persian manuscripts also helped me to explore a new domain of research in this field. The Persian manuscripts were mainly found in different Islamic shrines of Muckwanpur, Kanpur, Hilsa and Khodabux; Oriental Public Library, Patna; and Rampur Raza Library, Uttar Pradesh.7 Students of the South Asian History on Islam and Sufis, particularly on the role of Indo-Muslim saints in South Asian History, also refer to the works of Peter Van Der Veer.8 Carl Ernst,9 Eaton,Francis Robinson,11 Marc Gaborieau12, Ernest Gellner13 and Syed Hasan Askari.14 Claudia Liebskind’s15 monograph on unani presents a different picture of unani and oriental medicine of the subcontinent. The latest research16 has encouraged me to carry on a further study on the Sufi as a healer. Nonetheless, Leibskinds’ findings and documentation remind me to explore new findings, both oral and written available in the form of Malfuzat, Tazkirat and Maktubat. While discussing Sufis as healers, it would be worthwhile to mention about the Sufis who originated in India after their complete migration into the Indo-Asian subcontinent.

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